- Found somewhere in the net..
================================================


Merry Christmas!

There are approximately two billion children in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, this comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second or 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them, Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). A mass of nearly 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles/second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim considering all the high-calorie snacks he must have consumed over the years) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Here is another look of it

web.archive.org/web/20...ysics.html

Do I detect a note of BAH HUMBUG.

Mate, SANTA and his reindeer are extraordinary, special...these speeds and pressures are nothin' to them....he laughs at them...you know the sound...HO HO HO...which in reality is SANTA tryin' to say HO-HO-HOLY SH1Te, slow down a little easier, when ya's speed up be smoother...damn I need another G suit.

The sonic boom you mention is actually Rudolph clearing some of the chillie alfalfa hay he had the night before. The resultant back blast is what helps them reach the speeds they do in such a short time. Additionally, when he "follows through", it coats the reindeer behind in a heat proof coating of said chillie lucerne rendering them safe from the effects of the lethal heat of the friction.

So mate...enough of the BAH HUMBUG stories....SANTA is alive and living and preparing to do his annual delivery of pressies to all the good people. I know 'cause he answered my letter to him.

Cheers, Vince

You mean you don't believe in Santa? Gelandangan? Shame on you...You better talk to Joe about this...He's an elf...

Bushmaster wrote:

You mean you don't believe in Santa? Gelandangan? Shame on you...You better talk to Joe about this...He's an elf...

Nah Bushy.. I believe.. I believe.. but I musta been bad since I was 10 years old.... my poor mum have to buy me all those presents since then..

gelandangan wrote:

- Found somewhere in the net.. ================================================ Merry Christmas! At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, this comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second or 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. Assuming each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them, Santa would need 360,000 of them. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles/second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim considering all the high-calorie snacks he must have consumed over the years) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Boy, engineers just don't get it, do they?

"SANTA is dead"...the Engineers. "Engineers, who?"...Santa.

Wassamatter, Gelan ? Haven't you been shooting your .300 Whisper enough? Sounds like a definite case of cabin fever, to me. I hope your Christmas was good, and your New Year will be prosperous. "Live long and Prosper"...Spock

I just KNEW Vince would figure it all out. Good on ya, mate!